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About 14 years ago today, on Halloween, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world by sharing the acclaimed white paper. Satoshi’s invention, shared on metzdowd.com’s Cryptography Mailing List, not only solved a problem that had plagued computer scientists for years, but the invention also redefined how people view money. Furthermore, as a side effect, Satoshi’s creation spawned a new digital economy with more than 13,000 cryptocurrency assets, worth just over $1 trillion today.
Currently, cryptocurrency and Bitcoin fans are celebrating the 14th anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin White Paper. Bitcoin’s mysterious creator first introduced the white paper on metzdowd.com’s Cryptography Mailing List on October 31, 2008, at approximately 2:10 PM (ET). The date marks the first time Satoshi shared his inventor’s vision and the first sentence Bitcoin’s inventor said was:
I have been working on a new electronic cash system that is completely peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.
In the message, Bitcoin’s creator said that the invention offers a number of different properties. Bitcoin’s advantages include prevention of double spending, and there is “no mint or other trusted parties,” Satoshi said. The inventor also highlighted how bitcoins are minted via a “Hashcash-style proof-of-work.” Satoshi added:
The proof of work for new coin generation also drives the network to prevent double spending.
After introducing its main features, Satoshi shared the abstract summary of the groundbreaking Bitcoin white paper with a link to bitcoin.org, where the paper was hosted at the time. Satoshi did not communicate with the public again until four days later, when the inventor published two more emails on November 3, 2008. Both emails were introductions to the Bitcoin White Paper, with a summary and URL linking to where the paper could be . read. Satoshi wrote a total of 16 emails (some replies to James A. Donald) in 2008 before the network actually launched on January 3, 2009.
On December 10, 2008, Satoshi’s last email before the network was launched was a welcome post to the Bitcoin mailing list. After the network launched on January 3, 2009, Satoshi did not communicate via the mailing list until January 8, 2009, in a post titled “Bitcoin v0.1 launched.” In that thread, Bitcoin’s inventor shared the very first codebase release of Bitcoin when its creator said:
Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double spending. It is completely decentralized with no server or central authority.
It is believed that Satoshi may have shared the codebase with others before the “Bitcoin v0.1 released” post was published. It is also commonly understood that Nakamoto helped start the network in its early days. It is believed that Bitcoins inventor mined between 750,000 to 1.1 million BTC before leaving the community in 2010. It is also believed that Satoshi may have mined the cache of coins with a single PC.
In addition to releasing the white paper on Halloween 2008, it was the first time that academia and computer scientists were provided with a paper that solved the “Byzantine Generals Problem” or “Byzantine Errors”. It also introduced the first academic paper showing how triple-entry bookkeeping works, and Nakamoto knew it was a breakthrough invention when the inventor stated on November 13, 2008:
The proof-of-work chain is a solution to the Byzantine generals’ problem.
Not too long after the Bitcoin network was launched, the idea of creating an alternative crypto asset network came to life. 14 years later since the white paper was published, there are now more than 13,000 cryptoassets in the wild today, worth $1 trillion in USD value. Other types of blockchain and crypto concepts now exist such as smart contracts, decentralized finance (defi) and non-fungible tokens. Of the $1 trillion in value within the crypto-economy, Satoshi’s invention represents nearly 38% of the total today.
What do you think about Satoshi Nakamoto publishing the Bitcoin White Paper 14 years ago on Halloween, 2008? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
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